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8 thoughts on “Watching for Omens”

I share your alarm. Brexit would be horrible for the UK, the Eurozone and all other countries who trade with the UK. As John Oliver noted this past week, part of the effort is led by an ultra right wing group who uses labels, name calling and innuendo as its arguments. Check out the 6/19 Oliver show as it is quite good.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Short term it will be ugly. Long term it will provide headwinds to the UK and global economy. We need fewer barriers to collaboration, not more. To me, it is a sad day.

The sad truth is our voters are even less informed. They believe this man’s lies, which is why he can get away with it. The simple fact that this man can convince people he is their champion, when his history has been and still is exploiting them, is the biggest con job I have witnessed.

Indeed. And they will learn nothing from the UK because the US is so busy looking at it’s own belly button lint that most of our electorate are unaware that the UK is now reeling from the sucker punch of their tricksters.

Not only is the economy tanking, but have you noticed that within hours the instigators of this mess have backed off some of their promises.

I watched the BBC World News America and PBS Newshour and the financial experts are not very high on the UK prospects. When asked if this would be a short term or long term problem, one said quickly it is long term. The sad truth with Scotland very likely per their PM and Northern Ireland possibly doing referendums, this may be remembered as the beginning of the end of the UK as it now stands.

What also is staggering is the 18 – 24 year olds voted 72% to remain and 25 – 34 year olds voted I think 62% to remain in the EU. They saw the global future which included vibrancy. One final note, the greatest Democrat jobs president, Bill Clinton at 22.8 million and the best GOP jobs president, Ronald Reagan at 16.1 million, both believed in international trade and no deficits. Both of these factors will be in play for the new UK.

Foreign companies will likely place their EU headquarters in the Republic of Ireland, so it will be their gain and the UK’s loss.

I fully understand the negatives of the EU, but in the end, the positives of collaboration and reduced barriers to trade far out exceed those negatives which could be better managed.

Oh yes, the EU is definitely NOT structured very democratically. Which I used to think was rather dangerous but after this referendum I’ve been contemplating the very real danger of democracy. How to mitigate that at least to some extent is problematic.

The most obvious solution on the referendum is to not call a referendum as a political game ploy. Which many reports seem to suggest is how Brexit came about.

Or to use a 2/3 majority for something so dramatically serious. But how does serious get defined?

Or to take parliamentary / congressional democracy seriously and not put complex issues in front of a largely uninformed electorate.

Of course all of those solutions present problems as well. For example, if they had a 2/3 requirement, the brexit people would have spent years pointing out that MOST of the country wanted it. Which while not literally true is true of those who bothered to vote.

And – making every person vote would help.

Making voting education a priority in all democratic countries would also help tremendously.

Forcing people, who advertise, lobby and publicly speak for any candidate or issue, to speak with factual and intentional honesty would also help dramatically. Imagine if Trump was chained to that rule. He’d be boring his friends in some country club right now instead of running the Trump Election Reality Show on Tour.

Great Britain’s relationship with Europe, much less the European Union, has always been tenuous. That is why I don’t believe that this referendum is a sign for what will happen in the States. The only overlap is the political use of fear and greed and anger – i.e. the worst part of human nature – to gain support. Despite all the sensationalism, the Brits understand that the EU is one of the world’s most successful peace projects. What they don’t know, maybe, is that the EU was designed to have no exit ramp. They will vote. But the results of that vote will not and cannot become immediate reality. I think this whole thing is more of a wake up call and that practicality will “trump” emotions.